kitchen utensils

Preparing a garlic clove for mincing involves using a butter knife to press the garlic first. This allows the paper skin to come off much more easily.

How to prepare and mince a garlic clove

1. Gently remove 1 garlic clove from a garlic bulb by pulling the garlic bulb apart. Remove 1 garlic from the garlic bulb.
2. Take the garlic clove and put it on a cutting board.
3. Use a butter knife horizontally and press the garlic down a little. You’ll hear the garlic come away from the paper.
4. Gently remove the papery skin from the garlic clove.
5. Place the garlic cloves in the garlic press. Usually you can fit 2-3 garlic cloves in at once.
6. Press the garlic together by using the handles. Use only 1 hand to press the garlic together. The garlic will come through the holes on the other side, so be prepared for a little bit to fall. You can have a dish for it to fall into.
7. Using a butter knife, scrape the garlic from the garlic press and into your recipe.
8. Using a butter knife, scrape the inside of the rest of the garlic that didn’t make it through the press. Discard this garlic.
9. Your garlic is ready for your recipe and your garlic press can be placed in the dishwasher to clean.

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Can you store garlic in the fridge

Do not store garlic in the fridge, this is not the ideal temperature for garlic. Store garlic at room temperature.

How to store garlic

Store garlic in a dry, dark area at room temperature. Keeping garlic at room temperature will prevent the garlic from creating any sprouts. Store garlic in a cabinet with no moisture and low humidity. Moisture can create bacterial growth on your garlic, so it’s best kept in a cabinet away from any splashes. Garlic can be exposed to the air, so keeping it in a bowl in a cabinet will work well for storage.

What can you use if you don’t have a garlic press

You can use a grater if you don’t have a garlic press, or you can use a sharp knife to cut the garlic into small pieces. These are not ideal options as they pose a risk of hurting yourself. Grating garlic is hard to do at the end of a garlic piece, only grate the garlic about 3/4 way to prevent grating your skin. Cutting garlic is another option, but it’s difficult to cut the garlic into small enough pieces for a recipe.

What does it mean to cut in butter?

“To cut in butter” means to break butter into smaller pieces. Typically the smaller pieces are about a pea sized portion or smaller.

Butter is cut into recipes that need small chunks of butter to melt into the food to create flakes of pastry.

If you’re cutting in butter to your recipe, it’s best to use cold fat to cut in for your pastry. The butter will remain in small cube and be able to melt in the oven.

If you melt your butter prematurely to use for your recipe, you wont get the flakiness for your desired pastry.

How to Cut in Butter

1. Your bowl should be full of flour, baking powder or soda, salt, and sugar. Mix them together.
2. Add your cold chunk of butter to the bowl.
3. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter down until you reach the bowl.
4. Remove the pastry blender from the butter. You can remove excess butter from the pastry blender by using a knife.
5. Repeat the process of cutting the butter. Change your angle to create smaller pieces until they become a pea sized amount.
6. Your recipe is ready to add the liquid ingredients now (eggs, milk, etc.)

What does it mean to cut butter into dry ingredients

Butter needs to be cut into a recipe only after all of the dry ingredients have been added together.

Dry ingredients include: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cocoa powder, etc.

The butter needs to be placed in the center of your dry ingredient bowl because the flour mixture must coat the butter.

The flour coated butter is easily cut into recipes because the flour coats the butter as it is cut. The flour acts as a barrier to enclose the butter. This way, the butter will not mix with any of the wet ingredients.

The butter will only be melted in the oven, creating a delicious flakey pastry.

How to cut frozen butter

1. Freeze butter until it has solidified.
2. Remove the butter from the freezer and using a grater, grate the butter into small pieces. Depending on your recipe you might want to use the smaller holes, over bigger holes.
3. Grate until all of the butter is in pieces.

How to cut in butter for crumble topping

For crumble topping, you have a couple of different options to cut in your butter.

1. Use your hands: this involves your hands warming the butter a little, and then squishing it with your fingers to create small lumps of butter for your crumble topping. Usually crumble topping is mixed by hand because it creates more of a lumpy mixture than if you’re using a spoon. The lumpy mixture is more desirable because the topping tends to look more coarse and not as uniform.
2. Use a pastry blender: cut the butter into the topping by using a pastry blender. Keep the butter in larger chunks than you would a pastry, because the topping will be able to retain its moisture better. The topping should be coarse and look like nuggets for crumble topping.
3. Use a grater: grate using one of the medium holes. Grate the butter and then mix the topping together with your fingers. Gently sprinkle the topping over your dessert, and then bake.

What does cut in shortening mean

If you’re cutting in shortening, this means to break up the shortening into small pieces. Use a pastry blender to separate the shortening into smaller pieces for your recipe.

What can you use if you don’t have a pastry cutter

If you don’t have a pastry cutter you can use two knives to cut the pastry into smaller pieces. The pieces need to be quite small, they should look like coarse crumbs.

Using 2 knives to cut in butter will take longer than using a pastry cutter.

Can you use a potato masher instead of a pastry cutter

You can use a potato masher instead of a pastry cutter if you butter is a pretty large piece. Once your butter becomes a more useful size to work with, switch back to your pastry cutter.

A pastry cutter has sharp edges to really cut the butter and not mush it. The butter will retain its shape instead of being pushed into a shape.

How to cut in butter with fork

To cut in butter with a fork, use your largest fork to cut into your butter. Hold your fork horizontally and press the fork into the butter to cut it. Repeat and continue cutting the butter with your fork until the butter is in coarse crumbs.

What kind of foods do you cut butter into

• scones
• pie pastry dough
• biscuits
• crumble topping

Spatulas are rubber, they are meant to bend and move as needed to conform to the sides of the bowl you are scraping.

If you’re making batter using a stand mixer, sometimes the food will be pushed up the sides of the bowl. This is when you want to stop the mixer, and using the end of the rubber spatula, push the food down to the bottom of the bowl.

To get the excess batter off of your rubber spatula, run it against paddle or whisk attachment of your mixer. Set your spatula aside.

Turn your stand mixer on again and mix the rest of the contents.

When you’re finished incorporating all of your batter, it’s time to put your batter in or on your pan.

You can use the spatula again to scrape the batter into your pan.

Or, if you’re working with a thicker dough like cookie dough, you can scrape the contents on the bottom to make sure you get as much of the dough you’ve made as possible.

See video here.

Spatula uses in baking

A spatula is a rubber ended tool that is used in baking in a couple of different ways.

• scrape the sides of a bowl
• shaping butter
• mixing
• pouring batter and scraping it into a pan

How to use a spatula for butter

When making a butter layer for croissant dough, you use your rubber spatula to push the butter into a perfect rectangle.

Begin by placing the room temperature butter on top of a silicone pastry mat.

Push the butter into a rectangle by using your rubber spatula as tool.

Measure your butter as you go. The sides will become thin. To make them into the thick butter layer that you want, push the excess butter remnants from the silicone mat into the rectangular sides.

Can a rubber spatula melt

Yes, a rubber spatula can melt if it used over heat. Rubber has a melting point of 180 degrees Celsius. You will want to use a wooden spoon if you’re cooking with a saucepan instead of a rubber spatula.

Is rubber scraper a mixing tool

Yes, you can use a rubber scraper as a mixing tool for batter such as muffin batter or cake batter.

These batters are to be mixed only until just combined, therefore using a rubber spatula for a couple of mixes will be ideal for your batter.

A rubber spatula is fairly small and flexible. For thicker doughs like cookie doughs a rubber spatula will not work as well. The dough is too tough to mix with a rubber spatula. It’s best to use a stand mixer or wooden spoon for these types of thicker doughs.

Weighing ingredients is more accurate than using measuring cups.

Measuring cups use volume to obtain the amount needed for a recipe.

This doesn’t take into account packing brown sugar, flour that has been packed into a measuring cup, or just sifted flour.

Weighing ingredients takes all of these concerns into account because air doesn’t add weight to the food.

Therefore, weighing the ingredient is the most precise, accurate measurement you can get when baking.

1. Turn your kitchen scale on using the power button
2. Place a bowl on top of the kitchen scale for measuring.
3. Push the power button or scale tare button to make the scale go to zero.
4. Change the measurements by using the other button for what your recipe requires. Change the measurements to grams, fluid ounces, ounces, milliliters, or lbs.
5. Pour your ingredient into the bowl until you reach your desired measurement.
6. Add your ingredient to your recipe. You can reuse the same bowl for your next food to measure. But make sure you zero the scale again after you place the bowl on the scale.

See video here.

Scale tare vs Zero

A scale when turned on measures zero.

When a bowl is added to the kitchen scale, this adds weight.

You can use the scale “tare” button to make the scale measure zero again.

According to the scale you can now measure your ingredient, without having to worry about how much the bowl weighs.

The scale tare tells the scale you don’t want to measure anything you have added to it yet, aka the bowl your using to measure your ingredient.

What foods can you use a kitchen scale for?

• artisan bread
• macarons
• croissants

Where can you find recipes measured by weight?

King Arthur Flour and The Joy of Baking have all of their recipes in weight and volume.

Why are measuring spoons measured with volume and not weight?

Measuring spoons are measured with volume instead of weight because they are very small amounts.

These low weight foods generally cannot be measured accurately with a kitchen scale because the weight is too low for a large kitchen scale. Kitchen scales can measure heavy weights over 10 lbs.

You would need a much smaller scale with a smaller weight range (only up to 15 g or 0.03 lbs) to accurately measure the weight used by measuring spoons.

Kitchen scales are not calibrated to measure very low weights.

These small volumes do not dramatically change recipes because of their size.

Therefore, measuring spoons are ok to use volume to measure instead of being weighed.

A stand mixer comes with several attachments including the paddle attachment, also known as the flat beater attachment.

The paddle attachment is used for heavy duty mixing.

The paddle attachment can be used at the beginning of a recipe when you’re creaming fat, eggs, and sugar together. Cookies are made using this method, and then you can continue using the stand mixer for the rest of the recipe. The paddle attachment is heavy duty, and can beat this thick batter together.

The paddle attachment is used for making several recipes including:

• cookies
• icing
• pancake batter
• crepe batter

Other uses for the paddle attachment include:

• creaming butter
• creaming cream cheese
• creaming butter with eggs and sugar

Paddle attachment vs Whisk attachment

The whisk attachment is used to aerate foods like egg whites and whipping cream.

The whisk attachment is a sphere shape and uses a circular motion to mix, whereas the paddle attachment beats with a large flat paddle.

The whisk attachment is used for making whipping cream and making soft or stiff peaks with egg whites.

The paddle attachment isn’t able to perform these tasks due to the different shape of the attachment and the motion it mixes in.

The paddle attachment is used for beating fat and creaming sugar and eggs together to make batter. The paddle attachment is used for heavy mixing and thick ingredients.

The whisk attachment is used for more lighter ingredients and adds more air in the ingredients. This creates small bubbles which makes the egg whites or whipping cream turn into a different state.

The whipping cream will become soft peaks, perfect for serving. The egg whites will become soft peaks, and then stiff peaks. This creates foods for soufflés, twice baked potatoes, meringues, etc.

When not to use the paddle attachment

For foods like cakes, scones, and muffins, they need to mixed until only just combined, otherwise they become tough by developing the gluten too much with vigorous mixing. Therefore, you do not want to use the paddle attachment to mix these sorts of quick breads.

1. Select a saucepan that is small enough to have your candy thermometer bulb in the contents of your ingredients. The saucepan size should allow for the ingredients to be bubbling at the surface.
2. Attach the clip of your candy thermometer to the edge of the saucepan. Slide the thermometer down to the lowest point so the metal portion touches the bottom of the saucepan. The bulb will be above the bottom of your saucepan. If it was touching the bottom of the saucepan it has the potential to explode due to the direct heat.
3. Add your contents to the saucepan. Start cooking on 3 on your burner. You want to slowly add heat, and even on 3, the contents will go up to temperature.
4. Only stir your ingredients as needed. Sometimes with foods like caramel sauce, you just leave the saucepan to bubble and come up to temperature without stirring.
5. When your food has come to temperature, remove it from the heat source. Put oven mitts on and gently remove the candy thermometer from the sauce pan. Let it cool on a cutting board, or on your stovetop where it is heat safe to cool.
6. If you have to add any other ingredients to it at this point, use oven mitts to add the foods to the hot contents. Stir gently.

How to clean a candy thermometer

To clean a candy thermometer, do not soak it fully. Gently place the dirty end in a bit of soapy water and let the food dissolve. Wipe clean with a cloth gently. You don’t want to use that much force since the bulb is glass. Set it to try on a drying rack.

How do you read a candy thermometer

A candy thermometer is read by looking at the mercury and then the measurement beside it where it lines up exactly. The thermometer will have both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Be sure to check which side you’re reading the thermometer, versus what your recipe requires.

What is the difference between a candy thermometer and a regular thermometer

A regular thermometer cannot be left in extremely hot contents. A candy thermometer can be left in very hot foods, and read at extremely high temperatures (400 degrees F). A regular thermometer is not able to read high temperatures because it isn’t calibrated to read that high.

How does a candy thermometer help when making candy

A candy thermometer will help when making candy because it can be cooked until the exact degree of measurement needed for a candy recipe.

Candy can range from being soft, firm, hard, soft-crack, or hard crack.

This means that you need a candy thermometer to help determine the exact measurement for your recipe. There isn’t a way to guess the temperature or how “cooked” the sugar is.

What the 5 stages of sugar

Sugar Stage	Temperature in Fahrenheit	Types of Candy Made
Soft Stage	235-240	Fondant, pralines, fudge
Firm Stage	245-250	Individual Caramels
Hard Stage	250-265	Nougat, gummies, rock candy, marshmallows
Soft-Crack Stage	270-290	Butterscotch, saltwater taffy
Hard-Crack Stage	300-310	Caramel, toffee, peanut brittle, lollipops

What temperature does sugar burn at

Sugar burns at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Once sugar has burned, there isn’t anything you can do to mitigate the burnt, bitter flavor. Restart the sugar again on a low temperature to make sure your sugar doesn’t burn.

What temperature does a candy thermometer go to

A candy thermometer measures up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius.

A pastry blender is used for cutting fat into flour. A pastry blender is a tool that bakers use to cut fat into small pieces for a buttery flaky effect for specific baked goods.

What is a good substitute for a pastry blender

A good substitute for a pastry blender is 2 butter knives. Use the knives parallel to each other and cut away from each other. This should create strips of butter. Turn the bowl in the opposite direction and repeat until you’re butter is in pea sized pieces.

Is a pastry blender necessary

A pastry blender is necessary for recipes like scones and pie crusts. You can use alternatives, but it will take you longer, and you may not be able to cut the butter as small. Pastry blenders are able to cut butter into the appropriate sizes effortlessly.

What can you use instead of a pastry blender

Instead of a pastry blender, you can use 2 butter knives to cut your butter into small pieces for your recipe. Alternatively, you could use a potato masher, but it’s very difficult when the butter is cold. Typically when you’re cutting in fat to flour, you want the butter cold, so try the 2 knives method first.

What does a pastry blender make?

A pastry blender makes fat (butter, etc.) into small pieces in baking recipes. A pastry blender makes scones and pie crust flaky.

What is a pastry blender used for

A pastry blender is used for baking scones and pie crust. The butter is cold when you’re adding it to your recipe – coarse crumbs of butter.

A pastry blender creates a flaky effect with the butter for your baked goods. A pastry blender cuts fat into small pieces which melt in your dough. This creates a thin layer of fat which flakes the pastry dough.

For recipes that have cut in fat, the dough is not meant to be manipulated too much. It’s meant to be only mixed until just combined. If you mix too much the dough will be too stiff. Only mix until it’s combined, and stick it in the oven to bake. When it comes out of the oven, you’ll see the flakes of butter have melted into your pastry.

What does a pastry blender look like

A pastry blender looks like a U shape, with slats of metal on the bottom end. The separated slats of metal cut hard butter to create smaller pieces resembling coarse crumbs.

Learn what is the best pastry blender is and how to use it for your next baking recipe.